What are we?
Lancers!
What are we?
LANCERS!
What are we?
LANCERS!
What are we?
A number. A letter.
A label. A score.
No one asks why.
They only ask what.
What are your grades? What did you do?
Climb to higher educations,
Up crumbling mountains
And around dangerous cliffs,
And if you look down, you'll see
A mountain of students almost just as high,
Their eyes wide in fright,
Underlined by purple dedication,
Their faces hollow and pale,
All of whom fell or jumped from the stress.
And if you want to reach the top,
You have to step on everyone else.
When you get a good grade,
You please your teachers,
Please your parents,
Please your college,
Despise your peers,
Because they've taught that those who get high off of 90's and A's
Are the ones who are Smart.
The Honors.
The Best.
High school is a place where you can call girls bitches and boys assholes
But the second you call someone Average,
Oh, you'd better run,
Because that kind of bullying is not acceptable.
This is a safe school environment.
That's why we always go over what to do if a shooting takes place.
Average is a curse.
Say whatever you want,
But don't say Average.
Being Average is being worthless.
Anything less than excelling is failure,
And if you're not top of your class,
You're a failure,
No matter how much sweat you collect or how wet your eyes are.
Because we're statistics,
Not people.
Numbers,
Not confused kids.
You don't need AP Stats to understand.
Your scores represent your school,
Not your character.
Your wins and your losses,
Your passes and your failures;
That's what matters.
Thank you, high school,
For teaching me that I can be whatever I want
(As long as it's what you want)
(And as long as you can get rich right out of college).
Thanks for teaching me that blue collar jobs
Will leave the workers blue-faced
As they suffocate for need of money
And struggle to survive in the blue ocean of society
Because they couldn't reach an Ivy branch
That was so generously tossed out to them.
Thanks for teaching me that mental health is only important
When it's too late,
And that it's more important to get an A
Than actually understanding the material
Or having integrity.
Thanks for putting the fun in funeral
And the rage in average
And the die in obedience
And the crippling anxiety in nearly every student you've sworn to protect.
High school should be the best years of your life.
Never mind all that stuff up there.
That's not important.
What's important is that you make friends!
And you discover your passion!
And you decide what you want to do for the rest of your life!
Even though with everything you're expected to do you will be incredibly exhausted and overflowing with homework from useless classes and only graduating with the knowledge that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and that you were never good enough!
None of that matters now because these were the best four years of your life!!!
Right!!!
